The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-10

one in every 42 persons. Relativel.
 however, these figures are encouraging
 for the year before the total exceede
 that of last year by 16,015. Recently
 too, I have seen it stated on good au
 thority that if the paupers of to-da
 were in the same ratio to the popula
 tion as they were thirty or more year
 ago, there would now be not the 761, "A
 which there really are, but twice tha
 number, or more than a million and
 half of this unfortunate class.
 The inference from this is that th
 last thirty years have witnessed {
 gradual increase amongst the lowe
 classes of the elements which make fol
 self-supporting manhood, and one can
 not help recalling in this connection
 that it was just about thirty years agC
 when, by the Elementary Education
 Act, with it's provision for schoc
 boards and for large grants of money
 the first steps were taken to put within
 reach of these classes the benefits of
 the common school. Since then hardly
 year has passed in which parliament has not enlarged upon this first enact
 ment. The first great addition was a NCiiiphifobly dlItiluduCG ldW dllu luG
 next was the entire abolition of the
 weekly fees. The children of the poor
 est may now begin to get a free edu-
 cation when they reach the age of three
 years and only when they have passed
 certain elementary standards, or have
 reached thirteen years, does the law ex-
 empt them from attendance. This Is
 certainly good as far as it goes, but the
 quality of those ten years of early in- struction, the condition under which the teaching is given and how inade- quately 1t fits the recipients for a man ly, self supporting life-these evidently are questions that. are still in fierce dis pute.
 At the recent conference of Charity Organizations the faultiness of the ex- isting educational system was boldly chased by MT. T. c. Horsefal, cf Macclesfield one of the best authori- ties in England. as one of the causes of English pauperism. The one chance, he said, which the mass of the people had of being able. to keep off poverty was in its keeping or gaining health and strength in childhood and youth, and in it's gaining then the power to work well and use rightly it's leisure time. But the community, he said, by establishing a system of compulsory education, had taken that formative time of the life of every member of the working class under its own control and by it's failure to even attempt to keep healthy children healthy, to bring to the ailing a return of health and to train all children to desire and know how to work well and how to use alright their leisure time, it was direct ly the cause of a great amount of the existing poverty.
 That the utterances of this speaker were largely shared by the 250 charity experts who had gathered from all parts of the kingdom to listen 70 him, was evident from the hearty hear, hears" which greeted them. But for | myself, knowing from long and close observation how much better present | are in English school life | than those formerly in vogue, I felt re- | ieved when the foregoing statement | was modified a little. MT. Horsefall ad- | nitted that by their national system of 1 education the population generally was better fitted for self supporting and self respecting life than 1t could be with no system, but to his main con- ention he still held. It was impossible O doubt, he said, that if the English ystem were but as thoughtfully ar- anged, and as completely managed as hat of Switzerland and those in vogue n parts of Germany, thousands of men nd women who were now paupers, or ickly, would be strong and healthy , nd wen-to-do.
 It was the general opinion of this l. reat conference of Charity experts nat the chief cause of poverty was en- ironment, and that if the laws passed | nd the influences exercised by tle ate and community were that they s 1ould be, the pauper class would soon V 3 so greatly reduced as to give hope y [ it's final extinction. The drinking T ,loon came in for not little blame, | course; yet, for toleratng this in it's resent vice breeding forms, the chief anne lay, it was held, at the door of ,ciety. One speaker twitted his {, lueamish minded countrymen upon eir conscientious objections to whole me recreation on the Lords Day. 1t ould be impossible, he said, to find d ,tter method for insuring that the ass of the people should have the bit of drinking to excess and should tt know how to use their leisure time operly than the system so long main- ined by the guiding classes, and st'll 1t little modified, by which or the e day of rest drinking saloons are al- wed to be open and all places of 1olesome recreation such as tennis urts, bowling greens. cricket grounds d concert halls are closed.
 But in considering environment as q eeder of pauperism, this congress of arities hurled it's strongest invsCtive ainst overcrowding, and the want of 1per sanitation in those mis named < ceilings in which so many thousands English workmen have to find their " apology for a home. It was openly mitted that "in all towns and in 4. ge proprtion of villages there were IM lses which, by their structural ey ongness, or lack of air and light, ;! de physical and moral health and ength impossible for all, or nearly
 who had to live in them" But in $ connection how pleasant to know A t in these days a really hurculean ,rt is being made to alter these etched conditions. The haste to put ME