The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-05-08
John Bright On Educatlon.

At q recent Sunday School CONFER
ence in Rochdale, Mr.. Bright spoke on
the subject of education, citing exam
pies from the common school system OF
the United States. He produced statis-
tics to show thatin Manchester and Sal
ford there are more than fifty thousand
children. who are receiving no instruc-
tion whatever. OF these, vast numbers
are not even reached by the agency OF
the Sunday school, which seeks to de
scend to the lowest ranks of the peo-
Pile. He added:
"Now, shall give you the contrast
| to this, 10 show what has been done
I;eisewhere, and what might be done
| here. ask you just to go with me 70
a portion of the United States of Amer
lea, which was peopled from this coun7
| try some two hundred and forty years
ago. mean the New England States.
| As you look upon the map of the Uni
ted States you will find cluster OF
small States to the northeast of the
| State of New York. Those six States
are those of New England, which were
originally peopled by the Puritan emf
grants from England who settled there.
This is the district TO which / wish to
confine your attention, and am not
tasking you to look over the whole OF
the United States, though In all the free
States the same system is extended 70
great degree, and is gradually produc-
| ing similar fruits.
3Aspto, the results, i might give you
the statements of travellers, and will
| give you the statement of one friend OF
| mine who is now no longer living.
hrefer to very eminent member cf the
House of ofCommons, the late Mr.. Ellice,
the Member for Coventry, Mr.. Ellice
Travelled in America, as he had done
two or three times before, very near the
close of his life, some six or seven
Isyears'ago He visited Canada, and the
United States, and in conversation
which I had with him after his return,
he said that inthose New England
States there WAS the most perfect gov
iernment in the world, there was the
most equal condition, and most untyer-
sal comfort amongst the people, and he
lieped, were more instructed more
moral and more truly happy than any
other equal population had benin any
country and inTany age of the world. !.
| lEGheers.l The whole of this is to be
Etraced, not to the soil, aud not to the
climate, but it is to be traced, | believe,
ITO the extraordinary care which the
population, from the days of the Pill
grim Fathers until now, have taken
with every child, boy and girl, that
they should be thoroughly instructed,
at least in the common branches o1
learning. Hear, hear. sfeT......
| IE"Iimet q man once who told me that
until he was about twenty years of age
he had never seen a man that could not
read and write, and when he did see
one, believe he had come from Europe,
he looked at him with amazement as
you look with establishment sometimes,
and also with great sympathy, upon
| persons who have some extraordinary
| natural defect. The census shows that,
speaking generally, there is scarcely to
be found one person, one native Ameri-
can certainly, and you could not lind
one out of many hundreds in the New
England States, who cannot read and
write. EHear, hear.1 Now the influence
of those States is enormous. Though
only small States, containing not more
than one-tenth of The whole population
of the American Union,. yet the in
fluence of their opinions is felt tothe
remotest corners OF that vast territory.
[Hear, hear In New England they
consider their plan as the only " plan,
| They have tried it for two hundred
| years. Its success'is beyond all contest
/ it is absolutely complete. (Heer,
hear1 There is nothing like 1t that has
been equally successful in the world
\ And what our Puritan ancestors have
done II owtheyE were our ancestors
as we'll as theirs) in the States, If the
people of England had dthesense to com
/ prehend theirtrn interests, they m1gn'
compel to be done In the country In
which we live" Loud cheers.l