The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-03 00:00:00

lifx. Roebuck, M.P., on Education,

Yir. Roebuck, M.P., for Sheffield, who is now
114' 'Yin at Swanage, in Dorsetshire, delivered an
a'..Wiress on Education in the Congregational School-
roam in that place, on Thursday evening last, to a
very crowded audience. The Rev. S. Saville occu-
pied the chair.

Mr. ROEBUCK, M.P., on rising to address the
meeting, was received with much applause. He said,
Mr. Saville, ladies and gentlemen, I am obliged to
do now what I did on a former occasion when ad-
dressing an assembly like this—to begin by making
an apology. From an infirmity under which lam
labouring I feel a difficulty in reading at night ; in
truth, I find it much more easy to make a speech
than to read a lecture. Therefore, I will endeavour
to lay before you what few ideas I have formed on
the subject without .committing them to writing,
and simply by speaking to you. Sir, I wish it
clearly to be understood that I feel very great diffi-
dence—sincerely I speak it—in attempting to ad-
dress an audience like this. It has not been my
habit to lecture ; it has not been my habit to descant
upon matters connected with education. My busi-
ness in life has been far different. Still, sir, as you
tell me that you and your friends are endeavouring
to spread the benefits of education among your fel-
lows, and as you have called on me to render help
in that great work, I said I should have
the greatest readiness to assist you as much
as I could. Now that you are met for that
E
purpo,
will endeavour to fulfil the promise "ay made
to you. I understand, sir, that you
andyouramong
fellows are endeavouring to spread education
ded,
the uneducated classes by whonayou urronn
though your desire to do that is
frustrated
great measure by the great aresh have to
in a
difficult
conquer—the ignorance of the personsies you
whom you
address, and their utter ignorance
to lay before them.
nceof the great value
of the education you endeavour
Now, Sir, in stating
to
yon my thoughts on that
myself first to the class
whom you wish
subject, I shall
at
o -d
d idraesB upon this occasion ; then I
shall address ra
Sir, to those friends of educa-
tion who are to
.v
be suetehe teachers in these schools, be-
cause I think
some things to lay before yon
'which may smooth tho difficulties in your way; and
'7l address myself to the gentry by whom
you arc) siurarounded, and I shall endeavour to point
out to them
.e the advantages of the course you are
great duties they have to falfil in
taking, and tn
the position they hold on the present occasion. Now,
in addressing the class whom you represent, it is
iny wish to point out to the working man the great
,advantages of education. Firstly, I will speak of
ducation, as giving him the means of raising him-
self among his fellows, of carving out for himself a
great fortune among his fellows. Now this, Sir,
seems to me to be a great mistake. Very few peo-
ple can draw prizes in the great lottery of life;
where one man makes his fortune a million must
rest where they began. Therefore, the great object
I have in view is to point out to the working man
the benefits—the great benefits which he may de-
rive from education itself—to make him understand
that his life will be purer, his life will be better, his
life will be a more virtuous life if he has obtained the
benefits of education. I don't point out to him such
great examples as George Stephenson. I don't know
whether the working men hero have heard of that
working man in the north of England, who has lived
in our own time, who at 1S years of age did not
know how to write ; that wan taught himself how
to write, taught himself everything that he knew;
lie acquired a great fortune, and was, in fact, the
father of all the railways in England. That man's
life is almost a miracle, and I would not point out
to labouring men him as an example, because mil-
lions of labouring men cannot attain that which he
attained. 13ut every working man can get the
benefits of education, can derive the advantages
such as no other means can give rsm, which would.
make him a happier and a better man. (Applause.)
Now, sir, it is not for me to say whether among the
various races of mankind onu is better or more cap-
able than another ; but we say this of the race to
which we belong, that we are among the foremost
of mankind ; that Englund has exhibited in all her
classes the greatest rd os.iblo greatness to which man
can rise. (llear, leaar.) Our nobles, our gentry, our
merchants, our c
Arica' class, our lawyers, our far-
mers, our work:ths men have shown themselves to be
among the foremost of mankind. Therefore, I say
to you who are among the working men of this
country, are possessed of great intellect, which
God has given you, but from the want of education
have n at the opportunity of making use of it, it is
indeeo like the bright diamond hidden in a dark
cave

4‘ Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean. bear,
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air,"
Bo it is with my fellow-countrymen. There are mi'.
lions of you who are possessed of great abilities, of
wonderful capacity, who are bound down and gro-
velling in a state of ignorance. Why is this, Sir, I
would aF,Ir you ? What are the pleasures of an igno-
rant mrAn ? I would ask you to make a comparison
betwezn the pleasures of that man and those of
the educated man, and by that comparison would
woo you to see that intellect exalts each man who
has availed himself of the advantages of education.
Arid why ? The uneducated man is born to labour,
'and passes the greater portion of his life in labour ;
but there are hours when he is unemployed, hours
of leisure. And how does he employ those hours?
Unfortunately, for the most part in sensual enjoy-
ments ; unfortunately, drink is the great means by
which he obtains a solace, by which he recreates
himself, by which he gets rid of that which is more
painful than labour, the tedium of his leisure time
which is more painful than labour, the tedium of
his leisure time which sometimes he acquires. Now,
gr, what does an educated man do ? His enjoy-
ments are multitudinous. I can speak for myself,

_ .
that if a man had come to me in my youth with a

fortune in his hands, and had said to me, " I will
give you this on condition that you never learn to
read," I would repel the gift that he offered me, and
say it was worth as nothing in comparison with
that which he desired me to forfeit. No hour of my
life, no hour of any man's life may be without the j
enjoyment of a book. I have often said, sir, that a
book is better than a friend. No matter what may
be your state of mind, no matter whit may be the
state of mind of those who surround you, a book is
ever your equable, calm, and generous friend. You
°Pen it, and there is spread out before you the
*wealth, and mind, and language of the author. On
TrerY occasion he is willing to come forward and
refit you. The friendship of a book is above the
dship of man. I would say to you, learn all
th:4t the knowledge by which you are surrounded
-1111 Rile to you ; and there is one thing above ail
others Which I desire you to remember, and that is
that it is llithi
attain ten the reach of every working man to
Vlatty nearly all the enjoyments of
civilised life -
I amnot speaking of the enjoy-
ments
Wealth ives. not talking to
jewels women friends of splendidla
, of fine garments, of
the kind of thaanrib7:llB—(laughter)—that is not
I would point out and would tell
w_ould pointout to them.
them that all the , husbands .
ate
Pleasures of civillseci life
within the reach of all classes of society, but only
to be obtained by the lath,
-""lent of the intellect.
(Cheers.) Now, sir, I due say
knowyee know., what
many of those present
that I rdrie
of that terrible class of podticiatis called Ra~',icals•
may not
(Laughter and cheers.) My Radicalism,
b owever,
does not consist in putting everybody down t% v
desire is to raise everybody up. Meets.) believe
d
the working men of England have--an I sa it
y
advisedly—as much power of obtaining all the
elegances of life as the man who dwells in a palace.
Suppose now—and let me urge this upon your at-
tention—suppose a young mati marries sally in life
and hesomes the father of a family, awl that family
grows up into boyhood and girlhood.",' Suppose the
children are instructed and the father is not. The
father, if ho be a good man, stays at home in the
evening with his wife and children ; he does not go
abroad for excitement in the pothouse, but stays at
home with his wife and children, and his children
availing themselves of the knowledge they have ac-
quired, read to that father, and thus convey to him
the knowledge which they have obtained by means
of availing themselves of the advantages which
associations like this be-sow. It is that more then

anything else which I wish to point out to my fel-
low-countrymen. Foreigners invariably remark—
and I beg you to pardon me for what I am going to
say; it may be unacceptable, but it is true—fo-
reigners remark tint though in England there
is perfect liberty—a man may say anything he
pleases, so long as he do not injure his neighbour,
and may do what he likes so long as he do not
injure his neighbour—there is no great potentate
. _

—(laughter)—to say you shall not print, you
shall not speak, you shall not think ; any man
may speak, think, and do what he likes, so long,
as I have said, that he do not injure his neigh-
bour. Yet the foreigner remarks that between
the various classes of Englishmen there is a
greater chasm and a greater separation than there
is in any country on the Continent ; that the labour-
ing man in England is not in any way a companion
for, and has no means of consorting with, the gen-
tleman ; and it is trne. The gentleman, also,
although he may be kind in his behaviour, though
he may be a good man in all his relations of life,
yet he shrinks from tho bench of the labouring
man. Why is that? It is because the labouring
class of this country is not endowed with the win-
ning manners that the labouring classes of other
countries possess. They are morose, they are sus-
picious ; I may say they are a repulsive set of people.
Not that they have not all the capacities of the other
class—for they have all the capacities of some of
their wealthy arid happy brethren ; but the pecu-
liarity is that they fancy themselves a class apart,
having no communion with and no share in the
society of their well-to-do and happy brethren.

Now, I want to break down this barrier of separa-
tion; I want to make the labouring man in alt
things—in his character, in his manners and his
intelligence—quite equal to any man in the coun-
try. You, sir, and your fellows are laying down
the groundwork of that equality which will make
Englishmen indeed "a band of brothers," which
will make them present a front such as the world
cannot put down, which will make them, indeed,
the leaders of mankind. (Cheers.) Weil, my
friends, I tell you all that this is within your reach.
Now, we aro told, our much-esteemed friend here
has told us this evening, that the little people, the
quarrymen, go to work at seven years of age. This
is a mistake ou the part of parents. (Hear, hear.)
It is throwing away their capital, it is living
upon their capital. If you sent your children to
school until they were of the age of twelve, and
then had them back after they had gained the
means of acquiring knowledge of an elementary
character, the education given them would be far
richer for the poorer class of men than if they were
sent to work when seven years of age. Oa an oc-
casion like this, however, I cannot enlarge further
upon this topic; but I would beg to impress on the
minds of my fellow countrymen, the labouring
classes, that their own interests ought to impel
them to have their children educated in the best pos-
sible manner. (Hear, hear.) Now, sir, I will en-
deavour to address myself to those who are striving
to educate the class by whom they are surrounded.
There are some things now that I think I can say
to you, though I dare say you have heard it before,
but I will say it again on the present occasion—
something which may prove a solace to you, and a
solace to those who hear me. The great difficulty
you have in educating the people is that the fathers
take their children from school too early, but if they
were told, by allowing their children to remain at
school until the age of 12, what advantage they
could acquire from the habit of reading, what great
use and what great pleasure they could obtain by
acquiring the habit of writing, and what great ad-
vantage they could obtain by acquiring the first
rules of erithmetic, every one of them I think, would
say with us that it was a great point gained.
(Cheers.) Now, sir, it happens that amongst my
friends one who is very enthusiastic, one who has
paid great attention to the subject of teaching, with
his friends has endeavoured to find out whether the
hours of instruction might not be greatly shortened,
and I moved, sir, in the House of Commons for this
return, which I believe was printed by order of the
House of Lords. This is a return containing an in-
quiry into the advantage of what is called the
"short time" system in teaching. My friend and
his friends thought that the time of children was
occupied too much in teaching and that their minds
were strained and overburdened, end that they did
not learn nearly so much as they would if halt
the time were employed in teaching them,
and they advised the adoption of the short time
scheme—taking half the usual time for instruc-
tion, and the other half for drilling them as
Volunteers are drilled and as sailors are drilled.
They employed these means, and the consequence
was that the children who spent half their time in
scholastic instruction learnt quite as much as those
who spent their whole time at it, and that they freed
themselves from awkward habits by means of the
Volunteer and naval drill. Now, I wrote to my friend
when I was first spoken to on this subject, asking
him to tell me what he thought on the question, and
he wrote me a letter which, with your permission, I
will read. It is very instructive and very amusing.
The hon. gentleman then read the letter of his friend,
in which the writer said that the systematic inflic-
tion of punishment, mental as well as bodily, insepa-
rable from the old plan of teaching, was altogether
wrong. He made it a rule to discharge any groom
who whipped his horse, for where one required
punishment 99 out of 100 were spoilt by it, and so it
was with children. Schoolmasters in the half-time
schools and schoolmasters in some of the best schools
et. With
study, he
inre thepec landrespect
to
thenever
reductionusedcorporallonghours
puhnisrhsmn
of
was of opinion that after too long a period of seden-
tary confinement the attention of the pupil would flag.
A good teacher would adapt his lessons to the capa-
city of the child, and would make the value of the
lesson sustain itself by the interest he infused in his
manner of teaching. When the voluntary attention
of the scholar flagged, when coercion was required to
keep up his attention,;then itwas time to stop. The
writer proceeded to mention what he had been told
by Sir Edward Hay, who had great acquaintance
with children, respecting a small school which he
had visited. The hours were reduced from six to four,
and the system of drilling had been adopted, and
during the first year of the new plan the number of
non-attendants:on account of ilinees was but one-tenth
of the number formerly. The reduction of the long
hours was the reduction of great weariness, and the
consequence was that the number of malingerers, or
those who shammed illness, was very great. The
echolars wore not nom so desirous of escaping from
school as formerly, and did not wend their way to
school with such gloomy forebodings of punishment
as before. The children, the writer continued to say,
should have just enough of lessons to give them a
relish for play, and just enough of play to give them
a relish for their lessons. The physical and mental
' exercises should be so adjusted as to stimulate each
other. One point (continued the writer) to be en-
forced in connection with the half-time school sys-
tem i.e that instead of sacrificing the domestic eco-
noray to:the school, the school adapts itself to the
domestic economy. Children cannot too soon be got
into the moderate exercise of the business of life,
and the half-time system, if it is properly alternated,
should have reference to the actual business and
duties of life,while the elementary instruction should
make the children cheerful and happy. The first ob-
ject is to enable children to read to their parents at
night, and every boy who has acquired the necessary
education is thus in a position to derive all the plea.
Litire and advantage that reading gives to the reader.
Then the penny weekly newspaper brings them the
Id for the whole week. However bad
RC WS of the world
that newspaper may be, it must be admitted that
tession conveyed in the worst paper
he worst imPr
cannot but be an improvement on the worst impres-
sion conveyed
by the voice, and if you get them to
read the ileW6.l': er regularly it wordd be much
rig to the conversation of idle,
dissolute, or brutal p
better th.,n li9tPr" 0 )10. Then the writer pro-
- e
ceeded to say that whet e v,,r newspapers went, they
tended to do away with su°ll
cious ideas as witchcraft. (Laughter.) No family
obsolete and perni-
• would believe in
who read a weekly newspaP
el' s
vocal music
witchcraft. In all elementary (Lose- the
ought to be encouraged as a moons of chcc
family circle. I will stop one moment here (co
tinned Mr. Roebuck) to describe the school that was
erring( n
established by Mr. Ottery, a clergyman of the
Church of England, who has a cure at Window./ and