The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Tng educational statistics of England are
before us, and making allowance for the
inevitable inaccuracy of all such calculations,
and for their occasional tendency to substitute
generalisation for fact, we still find in these
pages a most interesting and, on the whole,
sufficiently encouraging record of the social
state of our countrymen in this year, 1854.

Stated generally, the result of the inquiry is
as follows :

Total of Sunday schools
Day schools, public and private 46,042
Evening schools for adults 1,545
And the number of scholars (a much more
conclusive test) may be reckoned at—
Sunday scholars . 2,407,642
Day scholars
Evening adult scholars 39,783
The day schools, of course, furnish the prin-
cipal points of comparison between the pre
sent and former times, as well as between our
own and foreign nations. The existing popu-
lation of England and Wales is within a few
hundreds of 18,000,000. We have thug an
actual percentage of scholars to population of
something above one-ninth. This, it must be
remembered, was assumed by Mr. BAINEs—no
mean authority—as being a proportion quite
high enough for reasonable persons to be
satisfied with in the actual state of English
society. Mr. BAINES'S calculation is commonly
considered too low ; but one-eighth, in lieu of
one-ninth, is now habitually assumed as the
point of practical perfection. This point is
not yet attained; but we are less distant from
it than the exaggerated language of many
writers and speakers would lead men to

expect.
The census-takers estimate, we know not
on what authority, that the population below
the age of three, plus that above the age of
fifteen, exceeds slightly 13,000,000, leaving in
round numbers 5,000,000 within those twelve
years. It may be reckoned that, with very rare
exceptions, school-teaching does not begin
before the first, nor continue after the latter,
of these two ages. There are children attend-
ing school under three years of age, and boys
remaining at school (as is common among the
wealthier class) above fifteen ; but both these
cases are exceptional, and need not be take'

SATURDAY,

into account in a general survey. Five mil-
lions, therefore, of human beings are all that,
within the utmost limits of possibility, could
be attending places of instruction at the same
time. But even from this number a consi-
derable deduction must be made. Apart from
the mere poverty of parents—apart from the
expense of paying the school-fees, inconsider-
able as these usually are—the money value of
children's labour tells heavily against their
chance of getting a fair education. To a
laborious family, as Mr. HORACE MANN truly
remarks, the gain of ls. (Id. or 2s. per week is
no slight inducement. In this respect it
makes little or no difference whether the
school be free or otherwise. The children are
kept away, not on account of what it costs to
teach them, but of what they can earn else-
where. Nor is it merely the present gain that
operates on the parent's mind. " Some per-
" sons qualified to judge," says Mr. MANN,
" are of opinion that the business of a farm
" labourer cannot be thoroughly learnt if work
" be not commenced before eleven or twelve."
Education of one kind is discontinued that
education of another kind may be commenced.
Even where this is not the case, the feeling is
natural that leads both child and parent to
desire that the former should be independent
as soon as possible. " Many obtain permanent
" employment as early as the age of nine r
and in mechanical occupations much earlier.
Again, where actual remunerative labour is
not performed, the child may be, and often is,
made useful at home. This, too, is a kind of
education, and one which school-teach-
ing ought not wholly to supersede, since,
however desirable it may be to superadd
other acquirements, the art of gaining a
livelihood is to the mass of mankind that
of most immediate importance. A further
deduction remains to be made for a less
allowable cause. The criminal or preda-
tory classes, of whom mention has often
been made in these columns, are not to be left
•
out of sight. They cannot, as Mr. MANN sen-
sibly says, be wholly done away by any educa-
tional or reformatory system. Their occupa-
tion, while it lasts, is profitable, full of excite-
ment, and involves freedom from that drudgery
which, distasteful to all, is more especially so
to the young. There will always be many
natures to which this kind of existence pre.
gents an irresistible temptation, not counter-
balanced by any moral conviction (whatever
their knowledge on the subject may be) of its
wrongfulness and ultimate disgrace. Including
all the above—children, or boys, working in
the fields—children working in mills or at
trades—children assisting their parents at
home, learning their future life-work, or crimi-
nally occupied—Mr. MANN deducts from his
total one-fifth, or 1,000,000 in all; thus reducing
the number who may be expected to attend at
school to something less than four millions.
Some further subtractions must be made on
account of invalids—of whom, even in early
youth, the census-takers reckon as not less
than 200,000—and of children in all ranks,
more especially the wealthier, whose educa
tion, during some part at least of the age of
tutition, is carried on at home. Making all
these allowances, " the residue of children
" between three and fifteen, having no impe-
" diment of age, occupation, serious sickness,
" or domestic education to detain them from
" school, would be 3,663,281."
Here our compilers leave their case ; but
we must add -
The estimate,
grossly exagg'
we come to k
attendance exi
labourers and •
years of daily
No rational th,
an elementary
ordinary day sei
leave such a
write with ease,
with some km
geography an''
reached whit
expect. But
years are not
well as many
even less than
official comput

. a remark on our own account.
a, fair in all other respects, is
;crated, as it seems to us, when
consider the length of school
expected from the children of
[ mechanics. Twelve consecutive
lessons—and all to teach—what?
pinker anticipates that more than
y instruction will be given at an
school. If the majority of pupils
t school, able to read fluently,
se, and cipher correctly, and also
knowledge of the rudiments of
ad history, the utmost point is
ich sober-minded persons will f
for such knowledge a dozen
required; and many parents, as
children, will be satisfied with
han such knowledge. But the [
utation gives above three million
111111111111111111111111111111

MAY 13, 1854.

and a half as the number that ought to attend
at one time, supposing each student to remain
twelve years at school. Of course, if each, on
an average, remains only seven or eight years,
the same amount of attendance at one period
will give a much larger total of students,
though the term of study is, in the ease of
every individual, shorter. And this we believe
to be the fact. Instead of assuring five millions
as the number of those who ought to be at
school, subject to the deductions above
named, we believe that two-thirds of that
number, or less than three-and-a-half million,
would be a fairer gross total. And this latter
number, reduced in the same proportion,
would give us two million and something over
as the fair complement of our schools; which
is the result actually obtained by the census.
If our argument be sound, it results that
neither in school accommodation, nor in
willingness on the part of parents to have
their children instructed, is there any material
deficiency. Of course, in asserting this gene
rally, we do not deny the prevalence of local
exceptions, But it clearly appears from the
report that the causes operating to keep chil-
dren untaught are, not inability nor unwilling-
ness to pay school fees, nor yet difficulty in
finding teachers, but the value of juvenile
labour, and the frequent employment of chil-
dren in domestic or other lucrative occupa•
tions. These things may he evils, but they
are evils which the want of an education bill
did not create, and which the passing of one
will not remove. The prevalent ignorance is
due, moreover, in great part, to defective or
injudicious teaching, and to the want of exer-
cise for the intellectual faculties of grown
men, whose early knowledge soon deserts
them when they find they have no occasion for
it. But to this subject we shall return.

THE WOODS AND FORESTS, AND
MR. KENNEDY.
WE observe that Mr. VERNON SMITH has pre-
sented a petition from Mr. KENNEDY, late Com-
missioner of Woods and Forests, praying that
the circumstances of his recent ejectment from
that office should be inquired into by the
House of Commons. No doubt the indivi-
duals by means of whose intrigues that gen-
tleman has been forced to quit his place will
strain every nerve to stifle any such inquiry ;
and we may add, that their influence is great.
But the public have a right to know why they
have lost an able and upright officer, whose
services, in a department which has been long
notorious for mismanagement and something
worse, have been eminently successful. We
can tell them something of the matter, and we
trust that a parliamentary committee will soon
disclose the rest.
Mr. KENNEDY received his late appointment
some four years ago, when Lord JOHN RUSSELL
was Premier, and Sir CHARLES WOOD Chancellor
of the Exchequer. He had been a consistent
Whig ; and he was invited over from Ireland,
where he held an important office, by his poli-
tical allies, to assist in the management of the
Woods and Forests. But, with Lord SEYMOUR
for his colleague and Sir CHARLES WOOD for
his superior, be soon found he had undertaken
a very arduous task. We believe we aro cor-
rect in stating that, from the first, Mr. KEN-
NEDY'S presence at the Woods and Forests
was not agreeable either to the high-minded
nobleman or the eminent financier we
have just named. We know—at all events.
from public sources—that very shortly after
his appointment Mr. KENNEDY was unac-
conntably thwarted in the performance of
his duties, and that various formal com-
plaints wero made by him upon the subject.
But he soon found that his remonstrances
were worse than vain. If he complained of
the incompetence of his subordinates, the
Treasury would forthwith supply him with
men still more inefficient. What had Mr.
KENNEDY done to deserve such treatment at
the hands of his own friends? That question
is soon answered. He was active and zealous
in the discharge of his duties, of an indepen-