The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-27 00:00:00

EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

THE most important question discussed at the
above Conference is undoubtedly that of the
early removal of children from school. All
the others are but ancillary to this ; and it
becomes, consequently, of the greatest im-
portance to ascertain how far we have
advanced towards a solution of the difficulties
with which it is surrounded, or a comprehen-
sion of their true character.
Two causes were adduced by the Bishop of
OXFORD as being concerned in the above
result—the present condition of the labour
market, and the general indifference of parents.
We are, however, rather surprised to see that
Sir Joux PARINGTON yielded but a qualified
assent to either of these propositions. The
Right Hon. Baronet has, indeed, devoted so
much attention to this subject, and is so well
adapted both by his habits of mind and his
country experience to form a just opinion, that
we have great hesitation i,

soundness of his views on
sion. Still we think it is
two considerations calculated

force of his statement may

notice, and we therefore in
our readers to some brief
on the question at issue.
We are told by the Right
of our juvenile population of an age to go to

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613

school not more than twelve per cent. are
engaged in labour. We do not for a moment
doubt the correctness of Sir JOHN PAKINGTON'S
statistics ; but we should be glad to know how
much ground they cover. Do they embrace
all the children who, in the manufacturing
districts, are employed in their parents'
cottages? In the stocking-making districts a
child of very tender years is able to add no in-
considerable amount to the weekly earnings of
the family ; and the needle is an influential
ally of the plough in distancing the claims of
the village school. Again, in many of our
model districts some of the children of the
family are constantly at work on allotment
grounds. What we ask, therefore, is, that in
striking the balance between the idle and the
unemployed children of the poor, these various
kinds of employment should all be taken into
account. With regard to the indifference of
parents, Sir Jour; PAKINGTON does not deny
the fact, but attributes its existence princi-
pally to the badness of the schools provided.
Now, we cannot believe that in the majority of
instances the parents ever trouble their heads
upon the subject, or could arrive at any conclu-
sion upon it if they did. They see a large room
hung round with maps—a gentleman in black
clothes for the schoolmaster—the lady of the
manor surveying its management, and the
Member for the county, perhaps, presiding at
its festivals, and they naturally consider that
such a system must be all right. While in the
next place, even were it not so, the power of
criticising their children's education implies a
degree of education in themselves which dues
not exist.

" The advantages of a good education " is
a phrase susceptible of two interpretations
It may mean either those higher and nobler
results which flow from the cultivation of the
moral and intellectual faculties, or it may
mean the additional loaves and fishes which
additional knowledge enables a man to pick
up. But to appreciate the first sort of advan•
t iges a man must be educated himself; and
he certainly cannot appreciate flu second if
they are not visible. Now, what we want in
the present instance is the ^rov c7x, from which
the minds of the poor may be favourably
inclined towards education. If we expect
them to value it for the first-mentioned reason
we shall be for ever in the same difficulty as
ARCHIMEDES. It is, therefore, on the second
that we must mainly rely. And the object to
b kept in view is how either to make educa-
tion directly lucrative to the poor, or at least
to prevent its interference with immediately
remunerative employment. The half-time sys-
tem is so far a step in the right direction, but
is open to objections to which we shall advert
presently. Let any of our readers, if he will,
allow his mind to travel over the unceasing
revolutions of agricultural labour. If clas-
sically inclined, let him peruse the first
Georgic of VIRGIL, and then ask himself where
the leisure-time is to be found. Spring,
summer, autumn, and winter each brings its
appropriate toil—

agricohe labor actus in orbem ;
and this obvious but obstinate difficulty the
members of the Conference have not, we must
s ty, fairly confronted.
It is not, we are convinced, until education
teiall be recognised as a necessary of life—
until intellectual nudity and moral pollution
shall be thought as indecent as physical—that
the malady of ignorance will ever be fairly
rooted out. When it shall become as great a
r.?proach to an employer that his servants are
brutally ignorant, as it is now that they are
r egged and filthy, then, and not till then, may
iv.: hope for some real improvement. But the
a;)proach to this great revolution lies through
the minds of the employers much inure than
tirough those of the employed. To begin with
tie latter is beginning at the wrong end. We
m tat influence those from whom alone can
be obtained such relaxation in the hours of
labour as may enable the poor man's boy to
cultivate his mind without damaging his body.
But how do the present race of employers
appreciate education themselves? Do they
set an example of surrendering some portion
of this world's goods for the sake of better
things? There must be few of our readers
whose experience does not furnish them with

THE PRESS.

a ready answer. The merchant who removes
his son from the sphere of a liberal education,
and plants him in his connting•house at the
age of fifteen, has no right to wonder at the
weaver or the ploughman who takes away
Billy or Tommy from " his book " at the age of
eie•ren.

- - llthis movement, then, is to come to any
good, an appeal must be made to the body of
employers ; and this not onl3 for the reasons
already stated, but also because a number of
gentlemen, though all honour to their motives,
cannot expect to do much by g etting together
and disposing of other people's affairs without
their knowledge or consent. A conference of
practical men, as represented by employers,
is the fitting corollary to a conference of
theorists; and until the matter be taken up in
this spirit, we have little hope of a satisfactory
result.