The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-23 00:00:00

SANATORY CONDITION OF THE CITY.

The report of the Sanatory Committee, to which
was appended the reports of Dr. Letheby, the
medical officer of health, was presented, and showed
that during the fortnight ending the 22d October
inst., 1,102 houses had been visited by the
inspectors of the commission, and 89 of them
had been reported as requiring sanatory
improvements in the respects detailed in
the report. The markets and slaughter- houses
had been duly inspected, there had been seized
and condemned 7,6441b5. of meat, which consisted of
36 sheep, 159 pigs, 1 calf, 31 quarters of beef, and
36 joints of meat. Of this quantity 3,8761b5. were
diseased, 3,0551b5. were putrid, and 7131b5. were
from animals that had died either from accident or
disease. During the past fortnight there had been
registered in the city of London 91 births and 75
deaths, showing a mortality below the average of
the corresponding period of the last 10 years. The
chief causes of death were reported as follows :
Phthisis, 10 ; mesentric disease, 3 ; pnemonia, 2 ;
bronchitis, 2 ; continuous fever, 5 ; scarlet fever, 4 ;
measles, 2 ; infantile diarrhoea, 2 ; whooping-
cough, 2 ; and diphtheria, 1 ; making 15 deaths
from tubercular diseases, 10 deaths from inflam-
matory affections of the lungs, and 14 deaths from
diseases of a zymotic character. The report con-
cluded by stating that these returns indicate a
satisfactory state of the public health.
Some other business was transacted, and the
commissioners adjourned.

MR. CLAY, ALP., ON 2IiE EDUCATION

QUESTION.

Mr. Clay, M.P., was present on Monday night at
the inauguration of the winter session of the Hull
Young People's Literary Institute, and spoke on
the subject of education. He said—l may call to
your recollection that Parliament has recently
sanctioned a very important change in the laws
which affect the representation of the people. Apart
from all other circumstances, the settlement, or at
least the partial settlement, of this question which
has vexed the country for years past, will leave the
road open for other business of equal importance,
which it has hitherto retarded. (Applause.) And
I make no doubt that the very first business of
serious importance which will be taken up by the
new House of Commons will be the subject of na-
tional education, and this will indee I be the best
answer to those who fear that recent changes may
have admitted to a share of political power some
classes too ignorant as yet to feel the full responsi-
bility which is cast upon them. I make no doubt
that this great subject will be for some, yet only
for some, future years to come, until it is settled,
the great subject of interest in the country.
(Applause.) You who have shown your full
and wise appreciation of the advantage of
mental culture ought to be the first to recollect
that it is a duty to give to others, not, indeed, the
education which you are lucky enough to be able to
give to yourselves, but to give, if possible, to all
your countrymen that amount of rudimental educa-
tion which will enable those to whom Providence
has given greater intelligence than to their fellows
to complete that education for themselves, and to
escape from the class of the hewers of wood and the
drawers of water. (Loud applause.) Now this sub-
ject is far too wide a one for me to enter upon to-
night, but feeling that it will be the one which will
occupy the mind of the country for some time to
come, feeling that its best development will be found
by the interest taken in it by such societies as your
own, I am very anxious to enlist you among the
pioneers of this new crusade, and if this society
thinks the offer worthy of their acceptance I shall
be anxious to give a prize, say of ten guineas, to the
members of this institute for the best essay, on
national education undertaken by the state. (Ap-
plause.) The considerations are many, and very in-
teresting. First, it is the duty of the country to
educate the people, or is it merely a matter politic
and expedient that they should be so educated.? For
my own part it appears to me that if it is the duty
of the country to prevent the body from dying of
starvation, it is almost equally the duty of the
country to see that the minds of the people do not
remain for ever in a state of semi-existence, hardly
ever having any real life, but as it were vegetating,
remaining in a state of utter and hopeless ignorance,
as destructive to physical life as it is dangerous to
the soul. (Great applause.) If again it should be
considered that it is the duty, and not merely ex-
pedient of the state to provide for this want, then
the essayist, or he who thought at all upon the
matter, would have to determine how far that edu-
cation should be compulsory ; how far it is con-
sistent with the notions of freedom and free agency
of this country that any one should be compelled
to do even that which is notoriously for their
good. We know that Englishmen like to do nothing
under compulsion. I believe that one of the
greatest blessings has been the introduction of vac-
cination, but still we know that people do not.like
to be obliged even to avoid the small-pox—(applause)
—and the probability is that if you could introduce
nectar, whatever that liquor of the gods may have
been—if you could introduce it, I say, among the
people, and force them by act of Parliament to drink
it, they would drink it very much as if it were so
much physic. (Great laughter.) Now these are ques-
tions which those who turn their minds to the sub-
ject would do well to consider, and which I should
hope to see treated in the essays which I think will
come, and in considerable number, from the ladies,
I hope, as well as from the gentlemen, in consequence
of the suggestion that I have ventured to make.
(Applause.) Nor have I set you any very hard
task. It is a problem not exceedingly difficult
of solution, because we have a good deal to go
by in the last twenty years. The first idea was that
education should be entirely voluntary, and until
very recently some of the greatest authorities in the
country—Mr. Baines, Mr. Morley, Mr. Miall, and
others—believed that the real principle was volun-
tary effort alone. But for many years past volun-
tary effort has been aided and supplemented by the
State, and the result of the experiment has been
that entirely voluntary schools during the last 20
years have riot increased in number ; that the other
schools have increased enormously ; that, naturally,
from having more money at their command, the
buildings have been better, the school machinery
has been better, the teachers have been better, and
the schools, assisted by the State, have beaten out
of the field those supported entirely by voluntary
efforts. (Applause.) Now, it is very greatly to the
credit of the gentlemen whom. I have named, and.
many others, that they have frankly confessed
—for what reason they do not p:eteud to say—
that the voluntary principle has failed, and that they
themselves are of opinion it is a matter which the
state should undertake. This will make the task all
the more easy, and that which I hope is that iu pre-
senting me with essays on this subject you will con-
sider a plan to be carried out, and that which I ask
of you is not speculative or philosophical but purely
practical, and reduced to very easy rules. I should
not ask of young men any deep philosophical or
abstruse philosophical considerations. I don't know
but perhaps many of you may have read a little
essay, rather more in the shape of a fable, by Fronde.
It tells of a cat, of an inquiring mind, who went out
into the world to ask of all the birds iu the air and
beasts in the field the secret which she herself had
never been able to find out, the secret of being
happy. (Laughter.) She went to one and the other,
and she was told by all—we have probably been
told so ourselves— that the secret was, " Do your
duty." But then unfortunately they all had diffe-
rent ideas of what duty was. One told her one
thing and one another, until at last, struck by his
look of remarkable wisdom, she appealed to the owl
for assistance—(laughter)—and spoke to him some-
what in this fashion, "0, wise owl, tell me this