The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-27 00:00:00

MR. COBDEN ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.

The re-opening of the Barnsley Mechanics' Institution
was celebrated on Wednesday night by a public meeting,
in what is now the lecture-hall of the institution, but
was formerly the theatre. Mr. Cobden, M.P., occupied
the chair, supported by Mr. Wilderspin, the founder of
the Infant School System.
Mr. COBDEN said—l remember when first mechanics'
institutions were launched under the auspices of the ex-
cellent Dr. Birkbeck—a man whose name can never be
held in too high reverence for his great disinterestedness
and great patriotism—and his intelligent colleagues,
Lord Brougham and others—l remember that when
they launched the first mechanics' institutions they
were intended, not as schools in themselves, but as
something to supply the defects of early education in
a class which in former times had not had the oppor-
tunity of receiving education. Now, such being the
case, it appears to me that to carry out the purpose
of the founder; it is not enough to draw together a
certain number of members, and provide them with a
commodious lecture-room, a convenient news-room,
and library. Those things could all have been ob-
tained, though probably in a less convenient way, before
mechanics' institutions were created. But one of the
primary objects of mechanics' institutions was to enable
a young man, on feeling himself deficient in some
particular branch of knowledge, to join a society
where he could have the opportunity of supplying his
deficiency in that respect ; and for this end you must
have classes to teach arithmetic, geography, grammar,
drawing, and chemistry. I should hope you would have
a class for French. Now, there has been an allusion to
one branch of study which particularly interests the
manufacturers of this district, namely, drawing and de-
signing. I think I heard the gentleman who last spoke
say that there was no drawing master in Barnsley ; that
you must have an itinerant master, who must go his
circuit from Sheffield, radiate about, and pay an occa-
sional visit to Barnsley. Why, if I were a Barnsley
manufacturer, that dealt in figured or damask linens, I
should beg and entreat the reporters not to let that fact
go forth, (Cheers and laughter.) Don't let the world
know that Dunfermline has got all the designers. (Ap-
plause.) Now lam told, for I am very curious in in-
quiring about anything connected with the art of design,
inasmuch as my own business is very much connected
with that art—l have been told, in consequence of in-
quiries I have made since I have been here, that the
patterns of those damask linens manufactured in this
place, which we all so much admire, are made by the
weavers themselves—(hear, hear, hear)—that the pat-
terns are designed by the labourer who weaves the cloth
—and that he, so far from having had any instruction
in the art of design, has been living in a town where
there is no drawing-master. (Laughter.) Well now, I
take it as a proof that you have natural talent for draw-
ing amongst you. But I say to the capitalists here,
that you are not doing justice to the men who show that
talent if you are only going to give them the ninth or
tenth part of a drawing-master. (Cheers and laughter.)
You must let it go forth from this moment—l hope our
friend here to the left (Mr. Harvey), who is interested
in this matter, will rise before the close of these proceed-
ing, and declare that another month shall not elapse
before steps are taken to ensure the services of a draw-
ing-master in Barnsley, and that all these ingenious
young weavers who are now able to put together a
damask pattern shall be able to learn something of the
art of design from a practised teacher before we meet
here again. (Cheers.) Well, I say, then, one of your
classes must be for drawing, and in this respect you wi
be aided by Government in a way which is perfectly legi-
timate. I mean that you will be supplied with the best
possible models of sculpture and drawing. I am an
advocate so far for centralisation that I will at all times
sanction and applaud a Government which draws to one
centre the best designs and the best models, and multi-
ply them in the cheapest way, and diffuse them through
the country. (Cheers.) It involves no restraint over
you—it involves no power to tax you, or deprive
you of your powers of self-government, but it enables
you to avail yourself of the superior light and intelli-
gence of people in the metropolis, who have devoted
themselves to the study of the arts, and provide your-
selves in Barnsley with all the best models and forms of
art which are to be found in London, Paris, or Rome.
Then with regard to other branches—the arithmetic
class, for instance—how many young men are there who
may be sitting at their loom with the best head upon
their shoulders, phrenologically speaking, that any human
being can ittssess, and yet from some circumstances ut-
terly beyond his control has had no opportunity of cul-
tivating that excellent head when a child. Yet that
young man feels within him what the majority feel in his
situation of life, if he only had the necessary education to
qualify him to rise in society. The first thing he requires,
if he do anything in the way of business, must be to know
something of arithmetic. Here you offer no means by
which the young man can learn the rule of three or the
multiplication table. I need not say another word, I
am sure, as to the absolute necessity of adopting such
a course. It is not necessary to have a stipendiary
master. You may adopt the monitorial system with
regard to the classes. And I hope you have got enough
of enterprising spirit among you to begin the institution
in the classes, and not to stop with arithmetic and draw-
ing. You should have a French class—(hear, hear)—
for now the French language is being made the general
mode of communication all over the civilised world.
You would then not only be teaching that which might
be useful to your youth, but you would bring that which
is ornamental as well as useful within the reach of all
adult manufacturing and labouring men in the kingdom.
I think you ought also, if possible, to try to establish a
school in connection with this institute. (Hear, hear.)
This is one of the most useful adjuncts in connection
with the Huddersfield institute. You should endeavour
to connect a school to your institute—it would be a
feeder to your institute, for by means of that you would
increase your members. If the advice of my friend
Wilderspin had been followed twenty-five years ago,
when first I made his acquaintance, and infant schools
had been established in every village, you would not
have to canvas for customers for your mechanics' in-
stitute—they would have grown up naturally to your
hand. And this leads me for the moment to leave the
immediate question before us, and to ask what were
these institutions established for ? Not as a system of
education, but to supplement the want of education.
And we want that education still that we wanted
when these• institutions were founded. Now I know
that this is a vexed question—it has been made a party
question. But, gentlemen, I have never regarded it as
a party question. I do not care whether instruction
comes voluntarily or from an organised State education.
I want education. (Cheers.) But I cannot accept sta-
tistics to prove the numbers that attend schools. I
cannot accept that as evidence that the people are edu-
cated ; for I cannot conceal what is evidence to my
senses that they are not educated, and that they are not
being educated. Well, now, I was talking only yester-
day to a magistrate of Manchester, and he told me that
he was attending at the swearing in of the militia in
one of the largest manufacturing towns in the kingdom,
and that not one-half of the men could read, and not
one-third could sign their names or ages. Now, without
wishing to offer any fanatical opinion with regard to the
peace question, I must say, with all sincerity, it would
have been far better to have sent those young men to
school rather than to the drill-sergeant. (Hear, hear.)
Nay, more than that, I think the safety of our country
would be more promoted by teaching them to "face
about," "right, left." I came the other day with a
gentleman from Preston, and I was talking over with
him the subject of education, as it was very natural I
should be, as I was coming here to this meeting.
He said to me, " I attended a coroner's inquest one
day last week, and out of thirteen jurymen, five signed
their names, and eight made their marks." I cannot shut
my eyes to what is going on around, and from these and
similar facts, I say we are not an educated people ; but I
say it is our duty, our safety depends upon it as a na-
tion, to see that the people are educated, and I know
of no place more fitting to discuss this subject than such
a meeting as this, for I take it for granted that you all
feel an interest in education, and the deficiency ofjuve-
nile education, by your being met here to promote adult
education. I have no hesitation in repeating what I
have said over and over again, that in point of school
learning most English people are less instructed than any
Protestant people in the world. I say that deliberately.
I remember quite well, at the time of the Hungarian
immigration to this country, just after the revolution,
that a very distinguished minister and religious teacher,
an Hungarian, was talking to me on the subject of edu-
cation in England. I told him that a large portion of
our people could neither read nor write. He could not
believe it, and he said to me, " Well, if that is true, how
do you maintain your constitutional institutions and
your political liberties ? It is evident that your institu-
tions are far ahead of the people, and that your self-
government is a mere habit with you." Well, to a large
extent, it is a baba, and we cling to it and preserve
that habit. But we want it put upon a safer foundation
than it is at present ; we want it as the result of an
enlightened appreciation—something that the people
will be proud of as an intellectual thing, and not as a
mere habit. I say there is no security for any kind of
freedom, unless it is based upon a wider intelligence than we
have in this country at the present moment. The want oft
an increased intelligence meets us at every turn. We see
in all our social affairs. Tak e,for instance, sanitary reforr
Why do our people, many ofthem,livein filthy places which
ish
are continually generating disease ? You may say, It
comes from
our poverty.' But then our poverty f
ignorance and our vices ; for our vicesoarbeenoßftenidtel
sietchoant:
sequence of our ignorance. (Hear, hesaro.l
is it not notorious that the great mass of
are
They
do
theepseople are
not well aware what the sanitary
necessarya for life—that
not know that ventilation is
poisons are the result of no scavengers
that
fromin th e
these streets
thingsand
no sewerage. They
her diseases. If it were impressed
do not know
proceed cholera and other
consequences followed these
upon them that there
would:;ike care to inhabit better houses,
causes, people b
which they might able to do if they were more care-
ful of their means. be
say that the habits of the people
are associated in
every way with the amount of intelli.

gence they possess. When I hear people advocating
temperance—and I myself am a temperate man—l fall
back upon this conviction, that the way to make them
temperate is to find them other sources of intelligent
excitement and recreation than that which is offered at
the present time. And I consider that one way to do
that is by giving them education. And I say, moreover,
that if a man is deprived of those resources for intellec-
tual and moral enjoyment which education alone can
give him, he naturally falls back into excitements and
sensual indulgences, because excitement of some kind all
human beings must have. Well, then, I say, whether
it be sanitary improvement we want, whether we want
a moral improvement of the people by making them
more temperate, and thereby giving them those greater
resources by which they can themselves secure sani-
tary improvement--I say education lies at the bottom
of it all. Again, I see in different parts of the
country great social movements between different
classes of the community. For instance, in Preston
and other towns there are twenty or thirty thousand
people out of work. Not a chimney but is cold and
cheerless--neither smoke nor steam saluting our ears or
eyes in those communities. There is an amount of
misery and desolation there to be seen that must follow
from laying down work and stopping the wheels of those
seats of industry for a month, six weeks, or two months.
Why does that arise ? I have no hesitation in saying
it springs from ignorance ; not an ignorance to be
charged to one party in the dispute. It is an ignorance
on both sides which leads to such results. Do you sup-
pose that when the world becomes more intelligent you
will have such scenes as that—of whole communities
stopping their labour for a month or two, and causing
such misery and desolation as may not be extinguished
for five or six years to come ? No ; when men come to
understand the principles on which the rights of wages
and the rights of property depend, they will not settle
their matters in such a bungling way as that, which
brings so much misery upon all parties concerned. Why,
even now we see great progress made in this respect.
We do not find, every time the cessation of work by 25,000
of the community takes place, the military called out and
blood shed. We see an amount of passive endurance
which certainly, if it had wisdom and true policy at its
back, would be highly commendable.
We see none of
y
that violence which we formerly saw, and we shall live
to see the time when another step will be taen in intel-
ligence— when men will settle those matters, not by re-
sorting to blind passion—not by the multitude o f gathering
together, and vituperating one another—but we shall,
instead of that, see perfect liberty given to all parties,
whether it be masters or whether it be men, to
arrange
these things according to their own interest and will ;
and when that is the case the rate of wages will be settled
just as quietly as you see the price of any article settled
in the market. You do not find when people go to
market with their cattle, with their potatoes, or any-
thing else, that the dealers in potatoes, for instance,
strike against the buyers ; that the sellers stand by with
folded arms, whilst all the potatoes rot, and perhaps re-
solve that they will starve rather than submit to the
terms of the buyers. No, it is the Niggling in the
market that tranquilly decides what the market value is
from day to day ; and thus the thing is settled without
those shocks and collisions, and waste of property, which
we now see arising from what I consider the most unfor-
tunate, and, speaking of it as a sign of intelligence, the
most discreditable thing passing in our time. Now,
understand, I am not saying a word as to the right of
either side in this question. I believe that both parties
think themselves right ; nay, both parties are right in
trying to get the best terms they can, the one for their
labour, the other for their capital. All I say is, that if
there were more intelligence upon these questions, upon
that law which decides invariably and inexorably the re-
lative nature of labour as well as anything else, these mat-
ters would be settled without that hideous suffering which
I deplore to see accompany these strikes and struggles in
our manufacturing districts. (Cheers.) And when I say
that intelligence will put an end to these things, I am
merely stating what has been done already in America.
You cannot point to an instance in America—where the
people are more educated than they are here—of total
cessation from labour by a whole community or town,
gi ten over as it were to desolation ; nor, I repeat, will
you see it here when these principles are understood,
and the enlightenment which such institutions as this
are intended to promote shall be spread throughout the
whole community. This brings me back again to the
necessity of schools. We want schools that shall teach
these principles, and accustom the people to think of
these matters, and be able to take a calm and reasonable
view of the questions affecting their own interests, and
not be led away by passion, or allow others to mislead
them by appeals to their passions. I say schools are
necessary, and we shall never be safe as a manufacturing
public, as a mining people, until it is invariably the case
that we have schools by the side of every large manu-
factory, and at the mouth of every pit. (Cheers). Now,
I have just alluded to America. When I came through
Manchester the other day, I found many of the most
influential of the, manufacturing capitalists talking very
carefully upon a report which had reached them from
a gentleman who was selected by the Government to
go out to America, to report upon the Great Exhibition
in New York. That gentleman was one of the most
eminent mechanicians and machine makers in Man-
chester, employing a very large number of workpeople,
renowned for the quality of his productions—a man
known in the scientific world, and appreciated by men of
science, from the Astronomer Royal downwards. He
has been over to America to report upon the progress
of manufactures and the state of the mechanical arts in
the United States, and he has returned. No report
from him to the Government has yet been published,
and therefore what he has to say specifically on each
topic cannot be known until it has been so made and
published to the country. But it has oozed out in Man-
chester, amongst his neighbours, that he found in Ame-
rica a degree of intelligence amongst the manufacturing
operatives, a state of things in the mechanical arts, which
has convinced him that if we are to hold our own, if we
aro not to fall back in the rear of the race of nations, we
must educate our people, to put them upon a level with
the more educated artisans of the United States. We
shall all have the opportunity of judging when that
report is delivered ; but sufficient has already oozed out
amongst his neighbours to excite a great interest, and I
might almost say some alarm. I must say that lam
delighted to find an intelligent man, selected because all
the world would admit his competency to the task, has
come back from America prepared to let the English
people know the truth as to their relative position in
point of education, as compared with the mass of the
people in the United States. I went to that country
nearly twenty years ago. I remember that on my return
I wrote a pamphlet on the subject, in which I recorded
my solemn conviction that in less than twenty years
after that time—and that was written in 1835—England
would be brought to a consciousness that it is from that
country—from her own blood, better educated than her-
self—that she has to look with apprehension in the
future career of manufacturing and commercial rivalry.
Well, if it should turn out that this report from
America is as I have heard it, I am delighted that it has
come from a quarter so competent in ev,ery respect that
no one will question its accuracy. lam delighted, .10e-
cause I want Englishmen to know a danger, if there is
one. Napoleon used to say, "If there is any bad in-
telligence come from any quarter, Wake me any hour of
the night, and let me know. Good news will keep, but
bad news one cannot know too soon." I say of the Eng-
lish people, that let them know of any danger to the
country, or any difficulty to surmount, and there is no-
thing within the compass of human beings that they
cannot accomplish. The great danger for Englishmen
is our being so encased in insular pride and prejudice,
so given up to a sort of Chinese notion of our own supe-
riority, that we won't open our eyes to what is going on
in other countries, until it be too late. lam anxious to
see the subject of education in America brought before
this country in the way I have indicated. Why should
America be better educated than England ? Do you
think that a new country has an advantage in educa-
tion ? Quite the contrary. A new country has a wil-
derness to cultivate, and the primeval forests to level,
every road to make, every bridge to erect, and
every-
thing that can give it the advantage of colonisation to
provide. That community is not in a position fully to rival in education, if the old country does en n sin:lustsy
-
y
to its people. Quite the contrary. An old country,
with its population concentrated, has far greater opportu-
nities and advantages than a new country. It has greater
wealth to bestow upon it, greater facilities by which to
draw the individuals together, and ifyoufind a young coun-
try beating an old one in the career of education, depend
upon it, it is because of some neglect or fault on the
side of the old country. We do not read of ancient
Greece, when she sent forth fresh colonies, letting them
become the teachers of the mother country. No. Athens
remained the teacher of the world, and it is a shame and
a humiliation to find that a young people, that were
swarmed off us as it were but yesterday, should be pre-
sented to us as an example and lesson in education.
(Cheers.) Now, I hope that it will not be said that
there is anything in these remarks at all out of place
in an assembly such as this. It appears to me that
such a subject as this should be discussed, in just
such a meeting as .this, where all may be assumed.oold
of" this to
feel a strong, interest in education. If the people
resolve to do it, I would not even now despair
country in a generation or two surpassing all the wor,
d
in education. But we must not refuse to adopt.ve
im-
proved machinery from other countries.
not be like the Chinese with their junks, refusing
build ships according to the Europeanat th
model. If we
find there is a better system existingm usete otherio
adopt
s id t e
of the Atlantic, we must not be toosealtstia
conceitedltit
t s better
it, provided it has shown by its
than our own. If we find ther Americansesses
l ,w beating
ea
t once usin
spinning jennies, or in the sailing of vessels,
go and see how they beat us. They sent a yacht here,
and it beat us. We,
'atmediately, with all the hu-
mility of children, set to work, and by adopting
all their improvement-,
and improving them, beat
them in return.
So, if an American picks
our
locks, we want to know how he does it. And if we
know' that he makes better locks, and will sell them
cheap, we buy them without
tscruple.boog h
eB
haveut it
seems
senthteadt
in the question of education,
to us a system which has worked well there, which has
been partially adopted in Scotland, and with similar re-
sults, we have never adopted it here. And what so
natural as that we should follow the same rule with re-
gard to education, as we do with regard to machinery
for spinning cotton, or in regard to the construction of
ships ? I take it that the result being in favour of the
American education is a proof that they have adopted a
better means than we have, and if we
are ever to equal
them or rival them, we must not be ashamed to adopt
their system, and, if necessary, even to improve upon it.
There is not a posed party, I hope, in this country now op-
to education. believe there is not a party that
does not consider there is more danger upon the whole
in our artificial state from ignorance than from educa-
tion.rs I believe there
is note, otnbeathewreo,olwd bnaottevbeer his
nolitical predilection may
forth, whatever we may ise doomed to undergo from
!straitened circumstances, owing to decline in corn-

HEWORTH.
Oct. 25.—Cholera (deaths) 2
In a communication recently received from this town
deploring that so little preparation had been made for
meeting the pestilence, the following are enumerated
among the disastrous consequences of its visitation :
" Our tradesmen, wholesale and retail, have lost thou-
sands, their customers being afraid to enter the town,
even with supplies. An enormous expense has been
incurred
din attending and feeding the sick, and burying
th, a greviour permanent charge upon the rates
for the support of the widows and orphans who have
lost those who found them bread—and the work is yet
to do."

From returns METROPOLIS.
made by the superintendents the H,
K, M, and P divisions of police to the Commissioners of
Police, and transmitted by the Commissioners to the
General Board of Health—it appears that on the 22d,
23rd, and 24th inst. there have occurred within those
districts four cases of cholera, all terminating fatally. In
one case the person died nine hours and a-half after the
attack, and in a second 19 hours after seizure.

ALARMING FIRES IN LAMBETH AND

BA MPSTEA D-ROA D.

This morning, between the hours of twelve and one,
two fires broke out almost at the same moment—one i
Lambeth, and the other in Hampstead-road. On
occurred in the premises of Mr. Lovesay, a chandle
and general dealer, carrying on business at No. 36,
George-street, Lambeth-walk. At the time of the out-
break the various' inmates of the house were in their
beds asleep. They were quickly aroused by the police,
and those sleeping in the lower part of the house were
enabled to effect a safe retreat, but not until they were
nearly suffocated with smoke. Two lodgers, living in the
top part of the house, had to jump through a skylight, and
in so doing, it is feared that they were badly cut by
the glass broken by their weight. Mr. Inspector Car-
ter who was on the spot in the course of a few minutes
after the alarm was given, entered the building, and
with the aid of buckets of water succeeded in keepin
the fire from progressing during the time lost in send-
ing for the engines. In a very brief period the Royal
Society's escapes arrived, as well as the engines o the
rlodge's Distillery, the London Brigade, and
but in spite of which the fire could not
the upper
ApVar:ssth'of England office. Every one present at once
wuwloecelrsnteiutobcntdoounowesfduomrtkhe,ed,
1 until the whole of the contents of the sk p
Fortunately, the
and much damage done to °-
premises by heat.
ifinrseu
tookr e d in
placetl ie Monarch
the
a tailor, No. 20, Hampton-terrac
suffTehreerotwhaesr
premises of Mr. Lan
to p ang,
nearly facing the Camden station of; Hampstead-road,
stead-read'
Railway. As in the previous case, the North-Western
in bed and asleep when the alarmase, the inmates were all
only by forcing through the was given, and it was
with their lives. The en • smoke that they escaped
of England Office gines of the Brigade and West
the fire could not be attended as quickly as possible, but
shop was all but co got under until the stock in the
in the Sun Fire consumed. The sufferer was insured
from an escape f
Office. Both
o gas. fires, it is presumed, arose

FIRE IN THE KING'S DOCK, LIVERPOOL, 1.17 D Loss OF
LIFE.—Early on Tuesday morning
on board thel
alarmorningan
given that a fire had broken out was
steam-
Dreadnought, belonging to the Steam-tug Conpatnuyg
which was lying alongside the pier of the King's Dock.
The engines belonging to the fire-brigade were quickly
on the spot, and on their arrival it was found that the
whole of the hold was on fire, and the entire destruc-
tion of the steamer was threatened. In a short time, how-
ever, the flames were subdued, but not before consider-
able damage had been done to the vessel. We regret to say
that, whilst engaged in extinguishing the fire, one of the
brigade was drowned, and two others received consi-
derable injuries by falling into the hold of the steamer.
The unfortunate man who lost his life was directing the
hose on the edge of the pier, -and whilst so engaged a
portion of the hose caught his feet, and, losing his balance,
he fell into the water and was drowned. Every exer-
tion was made to save him, but to no purpose, as he was
never once seen after falling into the water. The name
of the deceased did not transpire, but his hat was after-
wards found floating on the surface of the water, and
on examining it, No. 415 was printed on it. The men
in attendance dragged for the body, but had not been
able to discover it up to yesterday (Wednesday.) It is
somewhat singular that the Dreadnought had been fitted
out for sea, and was intended to have been dispatched
yesterday morning, to assist in laying down the sub-
marine telegraph between PQrtpatrick and Donaghadee.