The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-08 00:00:00

1 out of place. The improvements, especially in sanitary re-
spects, in the English Local Government Act have been
extended to Scotland through the able exertions of our col-
league, Provost Lindsay, of Leith, who showed, at our last
congress the importance of such a measure, and the Council
petitioned in favour of the bill. It was more than once
urged in our last congress that the invaluable attendance
in French hospitals of Scours de Charite made Their estab-
lishment in this country not only expedient, but a kind of
duty. There is great satisfaction in finding that steps have
been taken with much success towards the attainment of
this object. The most important by far is the foundation,
by the sister of our colleague, Lord Granville, Lady G.
Fullerton (so well known for her excellent writings),
of a sisterhood under a Paris superior, in a spacious
building, for which her coadjutor, Miss Easton, has nobly
contributed £5,000. These ladies being Roman Catholics,
their sisterhood is of the same persuasion, and this
somewhat interferes with their attendance in hospitals.
But Miss Brownlow Byron has established another body of
the same kind—the All Saints' Home, in Margaret-street
—and there are no other attendants than these sisters at the
North London Hospital of University College. This is a
great benefit gained ; and undoubtedly the exertions of this
association, and of those ladies especially who are in co-
operation with us, have mainly effected it. It is plain that
the duties of nurses offer a great and constant means of
female employment, as our amiable and able colleague Miss
Hope and her coadjutors in this town have shown, con-
firmed by the excellent training schools for nurses under
Mrs. Balfour. The Scours de Charite also perform the ser-
vice of nursing the sick at their dwellings. I remember that
when attending M. de Tocqueville's funeral at Cannes, the
feeling most generally expressed by all present was thank-
fulness for the comfort which attended the last weeks of his
life from the care of these excellent persons. Surely those
who have introduced this sisterhood into this country are
worths- of all acceptation. They well deserve to be the
countrywomen of Florence Nightingale—and no higher
panegyric can be pronounced. Lady G. Fullerton's fame
as an author, great though it be, is eclipsed by her dis-
tinction as a philanthropist. The progress made in the
department of education during the last year has been
very solid, though less showy, than that recorded at
our former meetings. The half-school system of train-
ing, physical and mental, has been adopted in the army
by the Education Council. The Commission of Inquiry
into the employment of children in various manufactories
have reported in favour of the half-school plan. The
attention of all engaged in the management of schools to
the physical as well as mental training of children has
lately been recommended with great power in a most able,
though unpretending, tract by a well-tried teacher, Mr.
Wilmot, of Cheltenham—a tract full of important matter
upon education, the result of the reverend author's experi-
ence, and judiciously expounded. He is now a member of
our association. Mr. Chadwick has fully examined the plans
of instruction pursued in various seminaries, and the result
of his inquiries has been in many important particulare
favourable to the schools and the teaching in Scotland. It
is to be hoped that our education section may have the bene-
fit of his attendance. The Educational Institute of Scot-
land, at its last yearly meeting, received an address of its
president, Mr. M‘Master, containing important suggestions
on the training of candidates for examination, and the
wil-
lingness of the institution to examine and grant certificates
to teachers. But the objection to all superintendence of
Boards or other bodies authorized by Government on the
ground of expense that might be saved is more than doubt-
ful, and deserves full inquiry in our Education Department,
as does the great controversy between the Privy Council
and our worthy colleagues the Lord Advooate and Mr.
Black upon some points, especially the support refused to
Ragged Schools. It would be wrong to pass over the fact
of the Scotch system having for more than a century anti-
cipated the important step of late taken in England, of
granting substantial advantages to competitive examination.
Reference is here made to the general course of advance-
ment by bursaries in the schools, and by exhibitions in the
Universities, of which there are only a few instances out
of Scotland. These benefits extend to all ranks. A dis-
tinguished professor in one University had in early years
worked at his father's loom. A learned friend of mine, who
became judge in the Supreme Court, owed his education at
Oxford to an exhibition from Glasgow College. He was a
baronet's son ; but the son of a peasant on his estate might
have gained the same place at Oxford, and then, instead of
being called to the bar, would probably have gone into the
Church. The mixture of ranks in schools, male and female,
has important advantages, both social and political. It is
impossible to avoid remarking the wholly erroneous in-
ference against education drawn by many who have ob-
served with horror the dreadful excesses of the multitude in
what is believed to be the country in the world best educated,
the American States. It must, however, be remarked, in
the first place, that Irish mobs at New York had the prin-
cipal part in the outrages, especially those on the unhappy
negroes ; and next, that the Americans themselves
complain of the defective kind of education afforded to the
people. The report of the City Superintendent of Schools
at New York, made only three years ago, dwells upon the
"large masses of ignorance" (these are his words) " com-
bined with destitution and vagabondism which are to be
tetrad in all our cities and towns," and he calls for a com-
pulsory education of the multitude. The effect of education
in this island have appeared most strikingly of late years in
many respects ; but perhaps sufficient attention had not
been given to the extraordinary diffusion of useful know-
ledge, as well as harmless amusement, in cheap publications.
The subject was dwelt upon at our former meetings, parti
cularly at Liverpool, and the progress has since been very
great. In the retrospect of former years it would not be
easy to enumerate all the benefits bestowed on our country-
men wherever the language is spoken, by the admirable
publications of Messrs. Chambers. They have been fol-
lowed by others in the preparation of works inculcating the
purest moral, political, and religious principles, and ex-
plaining the truths of all sciences. The circulation of cheap
works ie:now enormous, and the low price marvellous. It
may be sufficient to mention such as the half-crown volumes
of Messrs. Rennet]. and Wright, sold to the extent of three
quarters of a million; the British Workman, by Mr.
Smithies, at one penny, containing admirable prints. So do
the various publications of our worthy colleague Mr. Cas-
sell. He and his partners, Messrs. Petter and Galpin, have
invested a large capital in this most important and philan-
thropic business, and it is to be hoped that they may soon
receive their just reward in the return of it. Their Educator,
Band of Rope, Quiver, and Pilgrim's Progress have been
well-nigh finished. Of their Bible 214 weekly numbers
have appeared ; the price is ld., and for this are given
eight pages quarto of letterpress and five really beautiful
prints. The number sold is 300,000, and thus when it is
completed there will be circulated no less than 63,000,000
of the weekly numbers. The sacrifice made it is devoutly
to be hoped may only be temporary; and in contemplating
the circulation of this and the other works just mentioned,
Mr. Cassell and his partners may well say that they have
converted every poor man's house into a school of moral and
religious instruction. These are great things, on which the
friends of social science may rejoice as having been done of
late years for the advantage, moral as well as material, of
the people, and especially of the middle and working classes.
But the most important of all the subjects connected 'with
their welfare which can occupy the promoters of social
science is one which was only briefly alluded to at our last
congress, the progresnof the preceding year not being then
sufficiently recorded. I need hardly say that I refer to the
establishment by the working classes themselves of 00-opes
ration upon sound and rational principles—in other words,
to the securing of their own independence, and the improve-
ment of their habits and their character with their circum-
stances. This great matter was broached at our Glasgow
Congress three years ago, and enough was shown by our
colleagues—among others, Mr. Fawcett, Mr. Watts, but
especially that eminent philanthropist the Recorder of Bir-
mingham, Mr. Hill—to prove that the success of the worthy
and enlightened men who many years before laid the foun-
dations of the system at Rochdale had been not cnly con-
tinued, but amply increased, and that co-operative societies
had been formed in many parts of the country, more espe-
cially in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. It
is truly gratifying to find that by
the reports of the learned
and able Registrar of Friendly Societies, Mr. Tidd Pratt,
there were in December last 332 of these co-operative insti-
tutions, with 90,458 members, having 351,613 shares, and
holding a property in value of £584,766. The sums paid
for goods bought in the year 1862 amounted to £2,067,867;
the cash received for goods sold to L 2,331
lised profit to £165,770. But this is not the whole as it at
650 ; and the rea-
,
present stands, for Mr. T. Pratt informs me by letter,
dated the beginning of August, that the number of co. ope-
•to 521 The
rative societies registered by him amounts •
progress of co-operation at present may be pieved from
this, that of the 90,458 members in December last, 2,008
entered during that year.
But
to perceive the progress
from the beginning, we have the remarkable origin of the
movement recorded. It began by 40 working men at Roch-
dale raising among themselves £2B, and their stock was
such that a jealous shopkeeper told them ho could carry it
off in a wheelbarrow. Their weekly sales three Sears ago
amounted to £2,700. The business transacted by them
amounted to £150,000 yearly. The profits are 20 per cent.
on the capital, of which part is devoted to a library and
reading room, and 5 per cent. distributed to the share-
holders. Similar results have attended the co-operatives at
Leeds. Well, therefore, might I affirm at our London Con-
gress last year, on a view of this extraordinary progress,
that co-operation was becoming a power in the State. The
Cooperator, a monthly work, moat ably conducted by Mr.
Pitman, of Manchester, well deserves the attention of this
association. There were hopes of his being able to attend
the congress, but at all events he will send a paper on the
subject, with which no ono is so well acquainted. It must
be observed that co-operation, like
all other improvements,
whether. physical science or art, orin moral and
social
science, has been made by stops and in a long course of
time. Above 60 years ago Robert Owen and his partners in
the great spinning mills of New Lanark made the work-
people partakers of their profits by educating their children
and giving them such instruction as not only fitted them
for the work at the mills, but for any other
employment. Indeed, be was the founder of
infant schools as far as this island is concerned, the only
question being whether Oberlin, in Alsace, had not founded
them a few years before. The manufacturers of Lowell, in
America, adopted the New Lanark plan in the whole extent
of their great concerns, and the good feelings which pre-
between emplo
yen and work People ditioguid4e4 the